Every Epic Movie From Here On Out to Star Sam Worthington

He just wants all the parts in all the epics. Also today: a discussion of the nature of Lake Bell, some TV series news that will shock and elate you, and a big movie role for Mary J. Blige.

Are you guys members of the What Do We Do With This Society? If so, at your next meeting could you discuss Lake Bell? Because she's just such an enigma to me. Is she a comedienne? I mean, she's funny in that Children's Hospital thing and she was in It's Complicated (America's most important comedy). But then she's on How To Make It In America, which is the most tonally mysterious show I've seen in a long time. What the hell is that show? Actually, that's what you should discuss next time you have a meeting of WDWDWTS. No, wait, stick with Bell. I just don't know what to do with her. Anyway, she's going to be in the shudder-inducing Natalie Portman/Ashton Kutcher (pronounced Coo-shay) comedy that's tentatively titled Friends With Benefits. It's written by that much ballyhooed object of every sad wannabe screenwriter's (ahem) jealousy, Liz Meriwether. Lake Bell, guys. Figure it out. [Variety]

Sam Worthington can never do an indie. Sam Worthington will absolutely not tolerate any movie that isn't the biggest movie ever made. The Avatar, Titans, Terminator star is now attached to DreamWorks' upcoming Quartermain, based on those old timey books about the Indiana Jones-esque explorer who fucks shit up. Instead of going to find King Solomon's Mines and being vaguely racist, this Alan Quartermain will return to Earth from space long after humans have left and go on his own lonely adventure. If that sounds like it makes no sense, don't get your ears checked. It does make no sense. It makes so much no sense. But Sam Worthington doesn't care. Sam Worthington will smack you in the mouth if you suggest he does a movie that doesn't cost a hundred bamillion doughlars to make. They don't even pay him. He just likes the rush. [THR]

The much-beleaguered but now finally on track Moneyball is adding some players to its roster (ha ha ha, baseball cleverness). Known bad actors Phillip Seymour Hoffman and Robert Wright are in talks to join the cast, which already includes Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill. Jonah Hill really seems like the odd duck out there, huh? His career is almost as mysterious as Lake Bell's. If he turns out to be genius in that Cyrus movie, then I'll have no problem with Jonah Hill. But so far the best thing I've seen him do has been that weird little kid at the Benihana skit on SNL. I don't know. Anyway, Moneyball. Bennett Miller, who directed Capote, is directing this one, so he and PSH might have a little reunion. Everyone's pretty happy about it. [Variety]

Awwww yeah! Total: Yesss! Moment. The most awesome show in town around, NBC's Chuck, has been picked up for a fourth season. Aww yeah! Who doesn't like The Chuck? Everyone is into that particular show. You look at someone like Zach Levy and you're thinking, "Aw yeah, I wanna to make that kid a big American star, sure, why not." He's not annoying in the slightest. Yay Chuck! We're all feeling up for Chuck. Up Chuck! [EW]

And now after that joyous moment, we have some devastating news. NBC's sure-thing Rockford Files update, starring Dylan McDermott Mulroney, will NOT, I repeat NOT, be going to series. Everyone thought it would be. Everyone was counting on it. I don't know what I'm going to tell my grandmother. "What's that, sweets? The Jimmy Garner program isn't coming back? Well then get the hell out of my house, you ingrate." It's going to be rough. No one really knows what happened, it just sorta didn't work out. Something was off. NBC didn't like what it saw. And yet the same NBC renewed Chuck, a show about Chuck, for a fourth season. Nothing works as it appears it should. Is Lake Bell running NBC or something? [Deadline]

Hm, interesting. Powerhouse R&B lady who seriously, guys don't even try to give it to her, does not want any more drama, Mary J. Blige, has signed on to play Nina Simone in an upcoming biopic about the famed singer. Blige doesn't really have Simone's same melancholy warble, but maybe she could make herself do it? This could be her Lady Sings the Blues. Though, that movie was so dramatic! And that is not what MJ wants! I'm not kidding, guys. Absolutely no drama. [THR]